As I’d expected, Eric had not taken our proposed girls’ night out very seriously. For one thing, he thought modern American attitudes about nudity were amusing. He’d seen a thousand years of long nights, and he’d lost his own inhibitions somewhere along the way. I suspected he’d never had that many.

My honey not only was calm about my viewing other men’s naked bodies; he wasn’t concerned about our destination. He didn’t seem to imagine there’d be any danger in the Monroe strip club. Even Pam, his second-in-command, had only shrugged when Eric had told her what we human females were going to do for entertainment. “Won’t be any vampires there,” she’d said, and after a token jab at Eric about my wanting to see other men in the buff, she’d dismissed the subject.

My cousin Claude had been welcoming al sorts of displaced fae to Hooligans since the portals to Faery had been shut by my great-grandfather Nial . He’d shut the portals on an impulse, a sudden reversal of his previous policy that human and fae should mix freely. Not al the fairies and other fae living in our world had had time to get on the Faery side before the portals closed. A very smal one, located in the woods behind my house, remained open a crack. From time to time, news passed through.

When they’d thought they were alone, Claude and my great-uncle Dermot had come to my house to take comfort in my company because of my dab of fairy blood. Being in exile was terrible for them. As much as they had previously enjoyed the human world, they now yearned for home.

Gradual y, other fae had begun showing up at Hooligans. Dermot and Claude, especial y Claude, didn’t stay with me as regularly. That solved a lot of problems for me—Eric couldn’t stay over if the two fairies were in the house because the smel of fairy is simply intoxicating to vampires—but I did occasional y miss Great-Uncle Dermot, who’d always been comfortable company for me.